No kidding. The Marwitz letters do immediately come to mind, but in that century alone you have other strong contenders such as:
- Joseph's letter to brother Leopold about sister Marie Antoinette's and Louis XVI's sex troubles
- Joseph's letter to MT about brother-in-law Ferdinand of Naples
- since the Finnish Sex Machine was careful enough to demand Gustav to put it into written form that the threesome was his idea and order, that document counts, though I haven't read it!
- not sensational, but extraordinary in the sense of deeply touching and as revealing about her emotional life as that statement is about Catherine's: MT's list of how many days since FS had died, since she married him, etc. which was found folded into her prayer book after her death
(Found it again: "emperor franciscus my husband has lived 56 years eight months ten days, has died on August 18th 1765 on half bast ten in the evenig. Has lived 680 months, 2958 weeks, 20778 days, 496992 hours. My happy marriage lasted 29 years, six months, six days, and at the same hour I gave him my hand, also on a Sunday, he was taken from me. In sum 29 years, 335 months, 1540 weeks, 10781 days, 258744 hours.")
- also on a grief note: Joseph's letter to his daughter's governess ("I have ceased to be a father: it is more than I can bear. Despite being resigned to it, I cannot stop myself thinking and saying every moment: ‘O my God, restore to me my daughter, restore her to me.’ I hear her voice, I see her.")
- back to more fun versions of "extraordinary": have only read quotes from the letter, not the letter itself, but G2 telling Caroline all about his new mistress because she's his bff has to count!
And that's not branching out into other centuries. My recent reading has reminded me that Ludwig II., Wagner fan that he was, tried to write his personal letters the way people in Wagner's opera's speak, which makes most of said letters, well, extraordinary, but never more so than when he's corresponding with Wagner himself (who really did not speak or talk like that otherwise and found it incredibly exhausting, but hey, this was not any fanboy, this was the one with the cash!).
Extraordinary documents by monarchs, you say?
- Joseph's letter to brother Leopold about sister Marie Antoinette's and Louis XVI's sex troubles
- Joseph's letter to MT about brother-in-law Ferdinand of Naples
- since the Finnish Sex Machine was careful enough to demand Gustav to put it into written form that the threesome was his idea and order, that document counts, though I haven't read it!
- not sensational, but extraordinary in the sense of deeply touching and as revealing about her emotional life as that statement is about Catherine's: MT's list of how many days since FS had died, since she married him, etc. which was found folded into her prayer book after her death
(Found it again: "emperor franciscus my husband has lived 56 years eight months ten days, has died on August 18th 1765 on half bast ten in the evenig. Has lived 680 months, 2958 weeks, 20778 days, 496992 hours. My happy marriage lasted 29 years, six months, six days, and at the same hour I gave him my hand, also on a Sunday, he was taken from me. In sum 29 years, 335 months, 1540 weeks, 10781 days, 258744 hours.")
- also on a grief note: Joseph's letter to his daughter's governess ("I have ceased to be a father: it is more than I can bear. Despite being resigned to it, I cannot stop myself thinking and saying every moment: ‘O my God, restore to me my daughter, restore her to me.’ I hear her voice, I see her.")
- back to more fun versions of "extraordinary": have only read quotes from the letter, not the letter itself, but G2 telling Caroline all about his new mistress because she's his bff has to count!
And that's not branching out into other centuries. My recent reading has reminded me that Ludwig II., Wagner fan that he was, tried to write his personal letters the way people in Wagner's opera's speak, which makes most of said letters, well, extraordinary, but never more so than when he's corresponding with Wagner himself (who really did not speak or talk like that otherwise and found it incredibly exhausting, but hey, this was not any fanboy, this was the one with the cash!).